Duality

Part 1: Family

The Accident

Duality noun (pl. dualities)

1. The quality or condition of being dual.
2. An instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something; a dualism

Danny made his way hurriedly down the stairs. He wasn't running late; in fact, there was still over an hour to go before he had to leave for school. No, he was hoping against all odds that his parents weren't already up making breakfast. His hopes flattened when he heard activity from the kitchen, but he sighed in relief when he realized it was only Jazz making herself some Fenton Toast™.

He dashed to the kitchen and skidded to a stop in front of the fridge. He was halfway reaching for the handle to get the milk when he spotted a note stuck to the fridge's door saying that they were out. Danny grumbled incoherently while grabbing a box of toaster waffles from the freezer. He had really wanted some cereal.

He loved his parents; he really did. But that love did not extend to their cooking. Ever since the incident where the potato salad went bad and took the contents of the entire fridge hostage in a major coup, he and Jazz made it a point to prepare their own meals & eat out whenever possible. They'd long since learned to tune out the screams of distress coming from inside the fridge, but admittedly the periodic sounds of sirens and machine gun fire were still taking some getting used to.

All in all, a typical day at the Fenton household.

He pivoted on one heel, set his breakfast down on the counter, and pulled the toaster closer. He was about to open the box when he realized it wasn't waffles, but frozen lasagna. Frowning, he turned back to the freezer and replaced it with actual waffles. Said 'actual waffles' being a frozen steak.

Danny suppressed a groan.

He wasn't sure exactly when these… fits, for want of a better word, started happening. It'd start with a stray thought, practically a non sequitur. Or tripping on his own two feet, which seemed like typical teenager clumsiness, growing into his changing body.

But those stray thoughts became more and more coherent, and he found himself much more likely to trip or drop something if he was near Dash Baxter. Consequently, he caught himself saying things he really didn't mean. He was also becoming intimately familiar with Dash's fist and the inside of his own locker.

It was a good thing his parents were so clueless. It was happening so much now that he barely slept with that yakking voice in his head keeping him up.

Giving up, he grabbed a plate and microwaved the steak. Jazz raised an eyebrow but ultimately said nothing. She took her seat and resumed reading her psychology book, taking another bite of her Fenton Toast™.

Danny was seated at the breakfast table, poking a fork at his steak, when Maddie walked into the kitchen clutching a large box rattling with parts and equipment. Jack, still in his wheel chair, rolled in after her. Another box was propped on his lap.

Jazz groaned and tried unsuccessfully to cover her face with her book.

"Hey kids, guess what we've just completed..." Maddie opened. There was a sing-song tone to her voice, but it was still nowhere near as jubilant as it might've been last week.

"Behold, the Fenton Specter Deflector," Jack continued. "Just clasp one of these babies on and any ghost that gets too close will be zapped with enough juice to destabilize a weak one and seriously light up a strong one."

"We just need to build a few more of these and we can forget scenarios like last weekend ever happening again," Maddie added with unhidden relief.

Danny and Jazz exchanged looks. Neither wanted to be reminded about the meeting at the DalvCo warehouse. Unfortunately, while they were certainly not looking forward to ever dealing with him again, the fact no one had seen Vlad since then wasn't exactly comforting either. He was still on the loose and would certainly be back.

Lost in his thoughts, Danny didn't realize he had touched the Spector Deflector left on the table and pulled his hand back in shock.

"Huh… that wasn't even activated, must still have a few bugs," Maddie suggested, scratching her head before setting the device on the table to begin taking it apart. Jack offered her a screwdriver before returning to the other device they'd brought with them.

The thing, though, was that it hadn't been a bug, and touching the belt hadn't been an accident—not that he had deliberately touched it per se…

Did you enjoy that?

No.

Aw. I feel so bad. NOT. How about this?

His left arm raised to throw his greasy knife at his parents. His pupils dilated and he slammed the arm down on the table with his other hand. Everyone looked at Danny, and he offered a meek grin in return. Jazz returned to her book, and their parents returned to their tinkering, a bit slower and distracted.

Okay, so maybe today was not as normal a day as it should have been.

Stop doing that, Danny thought.

No. Never.

Danny sighed, accidentally out loud instead of in his head. His mom quickly turned her head to look at Danny – he could feel her eyes sweeping his face, the bags under his eyes from another night of little sleep that he could thank the little voice for.

She'll notice, the voice said. Sooner or later, she'll know I'm here, and you'll be in trouble then.

Oh yeah, like nothing would happen to you, Danny thought back.

I'll be fine. It's you that'll have problems.

I don't have time for this, Danny thought.

His eyes darting to the clock on the wall. He had more than enough time to get to school, but none to waste talking with the annoying voice in his head instead of Sam and Tucker.

Being late for school will be the least of your problems, the voice said. Remember, I'm going to make every day a living hell for you.

Danny stood up, keeping his grip on his plate tight as he carried it to the sink. He could feel the voice gathering its energy to loosen his fingers, to make him drop it. The voice wanted the plate to fall, to shatter and send the leftover steak flying everywhere. It wanted to grab the attention of the Fenton adults who were working at the kitchen table, to make them focus on Danny instead, to make them begin seeing all the things that were wrong and had been wrong ever since the voice itself had decided to take up residence in Danny's head. It wasn't shy about these thoughts – if anything, it forced them down Danny's metaphorical throat. The voice wanted people to see something wrong with Danny.

Danny carefully set his plate down in the sink, his hands tense as he tried to override the voice's influence telling them to smash it against the counter. He darted towards the stairs, eager to grab his backpack and get out of the house before his parents could notice anything.

You won't always be able to stop me, the voice taunted. One day, you'll slip, and that'll be the end for you.

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Never.

Danny grabbed his backpack and did a quick check to make sure he had everything before slipping it on. The first few days after the voice showed up, it had tried to take his homework out and hide it right after he woke up, when he was still too sleepy to stop it. Thankfully, everything he needed was in there, and Danny slipped the backpack on.

He passed through the kitchen again on his way out, but more quickly. His parents were just turning their second invention on, and Danny nearly raced out of the room as he heard it begin to say that a ghost had been located.

Danny could feel the silent smile of the voice in his head as he raced out the front door and slammed it behind him, heading for the sidewalk that led towards school.

They'll find out. They'll figure out what's going on, the voice said.

"They haven't yet," Danny replied. "And I don't plan to let them find out about you, ever."

For some reason, this quieted the voice in a way that none of Danny's earlier thoughts had. Danny could feel the sadness leaching into his own emotions from wherever in his skull the voice resided.

Please, the voice spoke again, this time with desperation. Please let me say something – just once.

"No."

Please, you can't –

"No."

Please, just let me talk to them.

It wasn't the first plea the voice had made to speak with the Fenton adults.

"I can't," Danny said, letting some of his regret seep into his voice. "You know I can't."

Please, the voice said again, eerily sad and empty. Please just let me talk to my parents.

Duality

One Month Earlier

Jazz sat alone in the living room. In between mouthfuls of yogurt, she turned the pages of her book, Coping Tactics for Traumatized Children, with a bored expression.

She didn't notice the towering shadow approaching her until it was too late. The shadow's owner grabbed her by the arm.

Jazz looked up and screamed.

She was dragged into a cold, poorly lit room. She tugged against the strong arm pulling her in.

"No, no! LET ME GO."

A second figure closed the door behind them and locked it.

Jazz was released next to three other unwilling prisoners.

"Hey Jazz, glad you could make it," her brother said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jazz's only response was a low growl as she hunched down in her seat next to him and crossed her arms.

Their captors, her parents, turned to face them.

"What you're about to see is of the most top secret nature. No one outside the Fenton family can afford to grace their ears with this classified information," Jack Fenton began in a stern, almost drill sergeant tone.

"Um, then why are we here?" Sam piped in.

"Well, we figured it's just good practice for when you inherit the family name," Maddie offered with an exuberant grin.

Daniel and Sam glanced at each other briefly before shouting in stereo.

"We're not dating!"

"Sure you are!" Jack countered, "And before you know it you'll have your own house, and raise a family of ghost busting kids just like good ol' Mom and Dad."

"Our baby's growing up," Maddie said, tearing up a bit.

There was a duet of audible face palming.

"Ah well, yeah, since I'm not planning on taking Jazz's hand in marriage, I uh… I think I'll see myself out," Tucker nervously explained before sprinting for the exit.

"Honestly, you weren't so much invited as it was a 'grab two get one free' kind of a deal," Maddie explained while holding on to Tucker's collar, resulting in a comical running-nowhere-fast pose.

"But don't worry. So long as you don't speak a word of what we're going to show you four, we won't have to take you apart molecule by molecule," Jack beamed.

Tucker was thrown back to his seat, rejoining the cluster of unhappy teens.

"Behold: the Fenton Ghost Portal!"

The Portal was a metal-lined hole in one of the walls that Danny's parents had drilled without a permit. Copper wires were spread and twisted along the walls surrounding it, a dozen gauges that should monitor portal functions were set in various positions around the wall, and the protective metal plating covering the delicate circuitry was bolted down at irregular intervals. All the innards were currently blocked from view by the thick, radiation-proof, yellow and black-striped Portal door.

"Technically, the singularity is already here," Maddie commented as she made final adjustments at a nearby control panel, "but it's currently only 3 nanometers in diameter."

"But with the this baby, we can rip that hole back to its full size!"

The four unwilling hostages turned to face the octagonal steel structure set into the south wall as the Fenton adults plugged the device in. The lights in the basement flickered from the immense strain of the house's wiring channeling more amperes than most city blocks did in a week.

The teens gave each other worried expressions as Jack ran up to the portal and hit the open button. The door hissed, content where it was. It suddenly jolted open a few inches, releasing high-pressure steam in the process before slowly opening the rest of the way.

"YES YES YES!" Jack whooped while hugging Maddie, lifting her off the ground.

The steam filled the room with a thick white mist. Visibility was zilch, and breathing became forced with the sudden bump in humidity.

But piercing through the fog, a dim light pulsed red. As the fog dissipated, the light become more focused and clear…

Until it became obvious it was the error display panel next to the portal. The portal hummed low and loud, but there wasn't even an apparition lurking nearby, much less a tear in reality.

"Well. That was certainly worth my time." Jazz announced brushing herself off and collecting her book. "Now that you've had your fun: Let us out of here!"

"I don't understand it. It should've worked," Maddie contemplated. "The changes from the proto-portal were practically all corresponding to scale and stability. There isn't a fundamental difference."

"It's too bad Vladdy's not around to give a third opinion. He always had a knack for this sort of thing," Jack sighed.

Jazz let out an exasperated groan, then grabbed her parents by the collars and dragged them up the stairs all the while reprimanding them for the utter waste of time and poor manners in dragging her there.

Danny hung back as his friends walked towards the portal, taking in every inch of the thing. Sam, however, quickly grew bored.

Tucker glanced at the moaning portal, the overhead lights still flickering ominously, and shuddered.

Seeing this, Sam grinned an evil, twisted grin that would make the Grinch himself cringe.

"I bet you twenty bucks you're too chicken to touch the back panel."

"What? Wait! No! I'm not dumb enough to go in there!" Tucker countered, not bothering to hide his nervousness.

"Come on, Tuck. It's just a steel door. It's not like it even works," Danny said, smirking.

"Then why don't you do it, if you're so sure?" Tucker pointed his thumb over his shoulder back at the portal before crossing his arms stubbornly.

"Me? Why should I?" Danny countered.

Now it was Sam's turn to look confused.

"Haven't you ever thought about all the cool stuff that could be on the other side of the portal? I mean, if your parents are right, there's a whole other world, and you can get there from your basement. Aren't you even a little bit curious?" she asked.

"I am!" Danny said. "It's just not safe."

"But, didn't your parents go in there, though?" Tucker asked. "Like, someone had to put that thing together, and I doubt they could do that from outside."

"Okay, you're right. But they were wearing their jumpsuits – I think they're Hazmat or something, protective lab gear. That's probably why it was okay for them to go in."

Sam began walking away from Danny, off to a corner of the lab. She opened a door to one of the cabinets lining the walls.

"Sam, what are you doing? My parents aren't going to be happy if you—"

Sam shut the door, and turned around with a smile on her face.

And a jumpsuit in her hands.

Danny groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"I forgot about that thing," he muttered.

"Dude, your parents made you a jumpsuit?" Tucker asked. Danny sighed.

"Yeah," he admitted, "earlier this year. I don't know why they thought I would wear it."

"C'mon, Danny. If you wear this, you could check out the Portal. Just think of what you could discover in there!"

"Sam, the portal doesn't work."

"So there's no harm in trying, right?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Danny admitted with a small smile. He took the jumpsuit from Sam. "But I better be getting that twenty bucks for this."

Like all the jumpsuits the Fentons had, it had black accents around the neck, along with black gloves and boots, and a black belt. Danny had managed to persuade his dad not to get the jumpsuit in the bright orange that the older man preferred, and it was instead a plain white. It seemed that Jack hadn't been able to resist putting his own face on it, though, and Danny quickly pulled it off – Sam wasn't above using embarrassing photos of him as blackmail, and he did not want to be in the yearbook wearing his dad's face on his chest. Thank God his dad hadn't gotten it printed onto the material, and had instead used a sticker.

Danny stepped into the jumpsuit and pulled it up over his normal clothes, pressing his jeans and shirt uncomfortably close to his body. He zipped up the front, surprised that once he'd finished, the zipper had almost disappeared.

"Well," he said, turning to Sam and Tucker. "Here goes nothing."

And he stepped into the portal.

For the first two steps, he was very cautious, carefully positioning his feet so as not to interfere with the wiring and moving very slowly. But nothing bad happened. He turned to look back at the mouth of the Portal, and his friends grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Sam had pulled out her cell phone, and she was taking pictures of him – he could hear the camera noise as he turned and walked farther into the portal.

Everything was going fine until a loose wire caught Danny's ankle. Out of pure instinct, he reached out to stop himself from falling, and his hand made contact with the wall of the portal. Something underneath his fingers gave way…

He felt nothing.

In another universe, Danny Fenton might have had his DNA rewritten, and gained super powers from this sequence of events. In another universe, he might have struggled to keep his secret identity from his friends and enemies. He might have tried and failed to keep his grades up and his home town safe. He might have grown up far too fast. He might have learned things he never would have otherwise. He might have lost things too precious to give up and watched his dreams slip from between his fingers.

But Danny Fenton would not do or experience these things.

Danny Fenton did not come to regret or second guess this fateful event.

In fact, he never had the chance to realize something went wrong.

Because Danny Fenton died the instant 200,000 volts coursed through his heart.

Duality

Ghost Zone

Greens on reds. FLASH. Purples on yellows. FLASH. Blacks on whites. FLASH. They twirled, they bent, they were angular, they were smooth. All at once. And not at all.

The lights were painful to look at, but hypnotic and exciting all the same.

"Daniel! Are you listening to me?" Danny turned and looked at his father.

"Yes sir," he said with a tone utterly devoid of emotion.

"Well, what did I say?"

"Don't go to the stormy areas of the Ghost Zone. You've always told me that, it's nothing new." Danny turned his gaze back out the window, out to the storm off in the distance. It wasn't like the storm made him excited or anything, it simply peaked his interest. It was very rare that anything made him excited.

His father looked at him sternly, red eyes narrowing, however the overall look in the expression was simply of an irritated, but still caring, fatherly concern for him. He understood his son's interest in the storm. He also understood that the interest would keep him at the window, at least, to keep watching it.

"I mean it. Please just heed my warning, ok? I have to go and make sure the storm doesn't make anyone think that this is a good opportunity to attack."

"Sure, Dad," Danny said, twisting his arm at an angle impossible for a human arm, and waved goodbye. He heard his father sigh with a hint of amusement, and then leave the room. It wasn't until Danny watched the faint white form of his father fly off in the opposite direction of the storm that he let a smile crack on his face. The young phantom floated away from the window, and after setting up a decoy in his bedroom, promptly shot out the door and towards the storm of colors.

Humans are particularly vain creatures. Often, when they die, their form resembles what they looked like in life, or at least a corruption or distortion of that.

The phantom quizzically looking at the eye of the storm had never even breathed using his own lungs, never mind lived long enough to look himself in a mirror, so his form was about as nondescript as ghosts got: a rounded head with no neck connected to a wispy tail and two optional boneless arms with a many or as few fingers as he ever felt he needed.

Without warning, the psychedelic storm collapsed in on itself, and all was calm. It was as if the light show had never occurred.

The ghost boy zipped around to and fro, seeking out where the strange storm went.

He couldn't know that a dimension away, a raven-haired boy was about to hit the 'on' button on his parents' invention. He couldn't have known it would rip a permanent hole in both realities.

He couldn't know that he was occupying the same space the singularity would re-form in.

In a fraction of a second, a huge 2-dimensional hole expanded, overlapping with the 3-dimensional form of the ghost child.

He screamed, but no noise escaped him, for either side of him was simultaneously sucked into the ominous hole in reality.

Everything went black.

Duality

His cheek burned and a loud noise jolted him up.

"Sam! SAM! He's up! You can st-"

An open palm converted into a fist and struck his face. The ghost child fell over.

"-op…"

Everything went black.

Duality

A steady stream of cold water erupted on his face. He gargled and flailed around like a livid wet noodle.

The jets of water ceased, but his vision was obstructed by black strands of… something.

He parted the strands with a hand and looked around with hazy vision. A white girl with black hair turned off the shower head, while a black boy sat on the closed lid of the toilet, fixated on his PDA.

The colors were all wrong… So muted and gentle and shiny. Nothing like back home in the ghost zone.

… Not like the ghost zone.

He wasn't in the ghost zone.

This wasn't the ghost zone.

The girl looked relieved and said something, but he paid it no mind.

If he wasn't in the ghost zone then he had to be in the land of the living…

… Did obsessions have ranges? … He needed to get out of here… He couldn't afford to find out.

He got up and tried to bolt out of the small room with every intent of flying through the walls intangibly.

Instead, he collided with the door and fell over flat. The back of his head broke his fall, by slamming it into the cold hard floor tiles.

Everything went black.

Duality

When he opened his eyes, he felt something cold and hard on his head. The two teens from earlier were hovering over him.

"Danny," the black boy asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

The ghost child paused. How did that boy know his name? He turned to face the hand. "Two."

"Phew… he's alright," the boy wiped sweat off his brow.

"You gave us quite the scare," the girl chimed in.

The ghost called Danny tried to get up, but his entire being was assaulted by pain.

… Pain.

It hurt.

Pain… hurt.

It was so… foreign and detestable. What a strange sensation.

He wondered how difficult it was to experience more pain, and if there was any chance he could experience more any time soon.

"Where am I?" Danny asked.

The two teens gave each other a concerned look.

"We're in your room," the girl offered.

"My… room?" the ghost child looked around. It was a mess. There was clothes all over the floor, and… he focused on one of the shelves. He'd swear he'd never seen one of those things before… and yet he knew… somehow… it was a model of the Apollo XIII rocket.

It looked… reaaaaaally boring. Why wasn't it more colorful? Maybe hot magenta with blue flames. Or maybe it'd look better if it had wheels. Like… the wooden ones from a stage coach of the old west.

There was an unfamiliar familiarity of it all, like the opposite of déjà vu.

The girl clasped his hand. It felt warm and solid.

"Danny, do you remember who we are?"

He furrowed his brow as more unfamiliar knowledge drifted to the surface.

"You're… Sam."

"Yes, that's right." Sam seemed pleased with this response.

"And me?" the boy asked.

"You're…"

"Yes?"

"… You're…"

"Yes?"

"Maddie?"

There was a beat of silence, followed by the loudest face palm in the history of face palming.

"Dude! I'm TUCKER. T.U.C.K.E.R. TU-CKER. Your best friend since forever!" the boy waved his hands around for emphasis. "How could you possibly confuse me for your mom!?"

"Heh, don't be silly. I don't have a mom."

There was an awkward pause. The ghost boy felt he said something wrong. He played with the ice pack, and got distracted by how it felt when he applied it to his eyes and removed it.

"Sam, I'm going to call 911. Danny's probably got brain damage."

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" Sam slapped the phone out of the boy's hand.

"Hey!"

"If we take him to the hospital they'll ask how he got hurt. We'll get blamed!"

"But you did encourage Danny to go into his parents' invention!" Tucker countered while shaking his hand in mild discomfort.

"Look, maybe he'll get over it." Sam pleaded.

"He's been electrocuted, punched in the face, and had a head-on collision with a door!" Tucker shouted.

"Actually, it was the floor that hurt more now that I think about it…" the ghost boy offered rubbing the back of his head. There was a lump that he was fairly sure wasn't there earlier.

"Hey! I didn't mean to punch him! I was trying to slap him awake!" Sam yelled.

"Should I be taking notes on all this?" the ghost boy asked meekly.

"Dude! A slap doesn't involve your knuckles all balled up!" Tucker leaned in, teeth bared.

"You startled me!" Sam counter-leaned in until their foreheads were practically touching.

Sick of being ignored, the ghost boy slipped between them, put his palms on both of their faces, and pushed them aside.

"If it's all the same to you guys, I think I'd like to skip a trip to the hospital, thank you very much. Now I'm feeling tired, so g'bye!"

He shooed the protesting teens out the door, which he immediately closed and locked.

"I'm sorry Danny!" Sam offered through the door.

"La-la-la-la I can't hear you!"

"Dude, we'll see you tomorrow," Tucker called out after.

There was a pause before he heard the pair of footsteps and a longer pause before he heard them exit the house.

The ghost child flopped backwards onto his bed. … His bed. It was familiar and not familiar. That was stressful.

Stress…

Another weird sensation.

The ghost boy hoped the two would be back early. It was so stressful with them around. It was kinda cool.

"Whelp. Might as well get a feel for where I am."

He tried to float.

Nothing happened.

"Huh."

For the first time he looked at himself. Really looked. Instead of an amorphous blob, he had pinkish skin, and solid shape. There was a vague disconnected concern that there should be noises coming from his chest that weren't there.

Was he possessing this body? He tried to release it. But every time he did, nothing happened except feeling a sensation not unlike stretching a rubber band—tension, something pulling against him, keeping him bound to this body.

So he was stranded, in this strange world, trapped in this fleshy meat bag, with half-memories that didn't belong to him.

He thought about having an existential crisis, but it seemed like it would be too hard to pull off just right. But… maybe if he… nah, there were more important things to deal with.

He got off the bed and looked inside the closet. He grinned an evil grin when he found what he was looking for.

A model paint set.

There was magenta in it.

He grabbed the Apollo XIII and quickly got to work.

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We don't own Danny Phantom... if we did, well... it might've ended up like this.

Duality is a collaborative work between Ava Taggart, Souzou, and Wooster. Ava proposed the question on Tumblr 'What would Danny Phantom be like if he was born a ghost?'... and from there a couple of complete strangers joined in and we spent months outlining this epic-length reboot of the Danny Phantom saga... and the natural response to having a deeply thought-out AU was to turn it into a story. We hope you enjoy it!

Special shout out to Lynse, who's provided some very useful feedback and is a wealth of useful knowledge and trivia on the series. (Especially since a certain writer *glares at Wooster* only saw half of Season 1 before contributing 20K words) Whoopsie! But seriously, she's great and if you haven't read her stuff, go do it. Mirrored (Danny Phantom + Jake Long) and Intentions (Merlin) are great places to start.

Part 1 is queued up. Part 2 is being written. Updates are currently planned to be every other Friday. (We'll see how long that lasts, but there's enough currently drafted to get us to June.)

However, since this chapter ended on a somewhat ho-hum note, Chapter 2 will be posted next Friday, instead of two weeks from today. It's a lot more interesting and should serve as better gauge of the story telling.